Back home and recuperating, I heard that a paper at PLoS One<\/em> was accepted pending minor revisions, so I’ve been penning the rebuttal letter between feeds, and last week I ventured up to the university with the pram to meet with its first author to discuss the final changes. And I’m getting together the first draft of a big paper from my last position, which is exciting enough to find a decent home fairly soon, if all goes well.<\/p>\n I find that academic pursuits sit well in the maternity leave environment. Thinking about science makes for a nice change from the sheer physicality of nonstop childcare – which is also a joy but has its challenges. Not going into the lab every day has brought back echoes of my Amsterdam unemployment phase, when I’d come up for air from constant novel writing to wander the streets and canals, adrift and slightly melancholy as only an unemployed person can be. Now, as I push the pram with its chunky tires through the woods in the weak autumn sunshine on our daily walk, my mind is strangely blank, and I marvel at how the hours stretch when a day’s structure is removed. It’s as if I’ve stepped out of time altogether. But my intellectual life is a reassuring connection to the rest of the world that makes this strange new existence much less scary.<\/p>\n Sometimes I wonder if I am supposed to feel guilty for maintaining my enjoyment — and even my need — of life apart from motherhood. A certain school of thought says this divided focus could be damaging to a child<\/a>. Comparing the two is an impossible experiment, but I like to think that my son would prefer me to be happy and multidimensional. One day I’ll ask him what he really thinks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Six weeks into the big experiment, and I’m surfacing for a brief update. There is nothing I can say about new motherhood that has not been rehashed a million times, so on the topic of sleepless nights, lunching frantically on … Continue reading ![\"Jenny's](\"http:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3768\/10630641753_5b6be22a80.jpg\")
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